


Missing

by osaki_nana_707



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-04
Updated: 2011-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osaki_nana_707/pseuds/osaki_nana_707
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(For the ficathon! OMG!) Cobb discovers that Arthur's not around and hasn't been around, and he can't find him anywhere. Surely that means he must be in some kind of horrible danger, right? Well, okay, maybe not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing

Cobb is horrified.

It starts that morning when he goes into his office to find that James has made a paper ball mountain and spilled ink all over his desk and himself. He carries the laughing little boy into the bathroom and is scrubbing ink off of James's knees when Phillipa walks in, braiding her hair.

"Daddy, I'm gonna be late for school!" she whines.

"I'm a little busy, Phillipa, uh—Could you ask Arthur to drive you?"

"Arthur's not here anymore."

Cobb pauses in his scrubbing. "What?...but he was here last night."

"He's not in his room."

Cobb decides that maybe Arthur just went out for a run or something, finishes cleaning James up, and drives Phillipa to school. When he gets back, Arthur's still not back, and Cobb starts to worry just a little bit. He hadn't seen Arthur when they drove out of the neighborhood.

He calls Arthur.

Arthur doesn't answer.

Over the next four hours, he calls him again and again, and the point man still doesn't answer. It seems that the line has been disconnected or turned off. He puts his money on disconnected.

Cobb is concerned.

Cobb knows that maybe he's being a tad overdramatic when he goes out and searches for Arthur around town, but Arthur always leaves a note. Arthur always leaves a note, and he never leaves unexpectedly unless he's in some sort of danger.

So, Arthur must be in some kind of danger, Cobb concludes, and starts calling the team Arthur worked with previously. They haven't heard from him.

Cobb goes to bed that evening, but he doesn't sleep a wink.

The next morning, he still can't reach Arthur, so in a panic he goes to the police and files a missing persons report. He brings in a picture he has of Arthur, and tells the police all the information he knows. He's so exhausted from lack of sleep that he forgets Arthur's last name.

He's sitting, jittery in his car when he's done. By this point he's remembered that the last time he saw him, he was going to pick Phillipa up from school the day before yesterday. He's pretty sure he never came back because he doesn't remember seeing him after that. Phillipa got home, yes, but maybe she rode the bus.

Cobb is convinced that Arthur is lying in a ditch somewhere with his arms and legs chopped off with a chainsaw, and then he's convinced that he's been watching too many episodes of CSI.

By that evening, Cobb has realized how stupid it was to file a police report on someone like Arthur, considering he knows how to disappear of the radar of even the highest government agencies, but frankly he doesn't care because he's worried to the point that he can't eat. Phillipa and James avoid him, worried that he might just snap and put them in time out forever, and he just sits in his office, bouncing his leg impatiently, calling Arthur's OTHER cell phone again and again and again.

All he can think about is how the police heard from witnesses that Arthur was seen with a larger man in a Hawaiian shirt, going quietly to the airport. To think that Arthur could be kidnapped by a man in a Hawaiian shirt is just sad.

He's just about to get up and go get a drink to try to settle his strung out nerves when he hears a click on the other line. "ARTHUR?" he shouts.

"Hello?"

The voice is not Arthur's.

Cobb panics. "WHERE IS HE? WHERE'S ARTHUR?" he demands into the phone, and he's trembling all over with his anger.

"He's here with… un… here with me…" the response is, and he makes it sound like Cobb is stupid, and this pisses Cobb off even more.

…and then he hears Arthur moan.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM, YOU BASTARD?" Cobb screams, and now Arthur's lying with his limbs chopped off in a bathtub, bleeding out and hating Cobb for not saving him in time, and _wow_ , his imagination is vivid.

"What?" the voice asks, and he's laughing. He's breathless and laughing.

Cobb pauses. He squints. The Hawaiian shirt and British accent make sense. "Is this Eames?"

"Ah-yes."

Arthur groans again.

"Eames, what the hell? Where are you guys?"

"Hawaii!" Eames exclaims excitedly.

"FUCK!" Arthur shouts.

"Hawaii?" Cobb questions. "You… you kidnapped Arthur and took him to Hawaii?"

"I didn't uhn- kidnap, ah- anyone. He ohh- came quietly. At least he did ooh- in that sense anyway. He left you a note on your desk—fuck, fuck…"

It's then that Cobb remembers James's paper ball mountain and reaches into the wastebasket until he finds a piece of yellow paper with Arthur's delicate scrawl on it, saying that he had to leave because he had something to attend to. Cobb feels stupid.

"But why is he with you? What matters did he have to attend to?" Cobb asks, and it sounds whinier than he wants it to. He's just so goddamned upset.

Phillipa knocks on the door and through the wood says, "Hey daddy, the police people called and said they were on the lookout for Mr. Eames. Is Mr. Eames missing too?"

"Go play in your room," Cobb calls to her.

Eames is laughing, but it sounds strained.

"What are you doing?" Cobb asks.

"Multitasking," Eames grunts. "I'm ah- bloody good at it, too. JESUS."

"Let me talk to Arthur. I need to know he's okay."

"He's fine, Cobb, really—he's not as good at multitasking as I am though. He's a bit—indisposed."

"Why? What's he doing? What have you done to him?"

"So bloody suspicious. I haven't done anything to him—well, nothing dangerous."

"Eames, what—"

"EAMES, GET OFF THE DAMN PHONE AND FUCK ME HARDER," Arthur shouts, and Cobb understands.

He eloquently responds to this new source of information with, "whahuhhhfff."

"So, anyway, can he ohhh—call you back later then?" Eames asks. "Oh, Jesus… Oh fuck…"

"Harder, harder!" Arthur coaxes. "Oh, God, I'm gonna… Oh… Oh! _Oh_!"

Cobb hangs up and locks his phone in his desk drawer as if it's done something bad and needs to be punished. Cobb can't make sense of it other than the fact that he skipped over an important detail about a note and now Arthur's safe in Hawaii with Eames thrusting into him and Arthur moaning and writhing and, _wow_ his imagination is vivid and…

Cobb is horrified.


End file.
